


Breaking Bad

by ShearViscosity



Category: Descendants (2015), Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Genre: Complete, Gen, Ohana, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShearViscosity/pseuds/ShearViscosity
Summary: It's the day before the coronation and thanks to Ben, Mal's having doubts about being evil. Then she meets a strange girl who prefers danger to princesses, and has a blue alien for a best friend who was designed as an evil experiment. Between learning about the meaning of ohana, and some foreign king called Eivis, Mal no longer has doubts about who she is and where she belongs.





	Breaking Bad

The coronation was a few days away and Mal was having a few reservations about their plan. While the disastrous Parent's Day had firmly cemented into their four heads that they were born villains, and were justified in their plan against the heroes, Mal was having doubts.

The closest she had gotten to mentioning these doubts aloud was when Evie caught her creating the anti-love potion and she fibbed about her true intent. She wanted Ben to be in love with her for real, not because he was forced to. For her to care so much could only mean one of three things—she was mental, she really wasn't rotten to the care as she thought, or worse, she loved him back.

Which was ridiculous. She was Mal, daughter of Maleficent, and her name along with her mother's installed fear in even the toughest pirate on the Isle. She was evil, a villain, a menace, a threat to society, an abomination, a _monstrosity_ —there was no way she was capable of actually be good.

She didn't even know if she could be good. Mal wasn't hiding—villains never hid, she was keeping a low profile in the gardens of Auradon Prep. Evie hadn't quite bought her fib, being far smarter than Mal and a lot of people gave her credit for, and Carlos and Jay were sure to pick up that something was wrong. And if she couldn't face them, she certainly couldn't face who was the source of all her problems and doubts in the first place.

Mal most definitely wasn't hiding under a rather large tree in the gardens, protecting her from the sun. Instead, she was plotting, calculating her next move. That's what she told herself at least. She really should work on her lying abilities.

"I like your hair." Mal looked up and saw a brown-skinned girl standing in front of her, who was wearing a red dress with leaves on it.

"Uh, thanks," replied Mal, unsure of what else to say. It wasn't the first time she had been complimented on her hair at the school, even being asked by some of the girls to do theirs. The girl before her though was definitely not one of them; in fact Mal was pretty sure she had never seen her before at Auradon Prep which had a rather small and exclusive student population. The girl actually looked a little young to be at Auardon Prep.

The girl plopped down next to her with a backpack covered in pins and patch, and without being prompted started to talk to Mal. "I'm supposed to be on a tour, but all the girls were boring and reminded me of Mertle. I thought coming to a magic school would be exciting, with monsters lurking around every corner ready to eat me. Instead all I get are a bunch of princesses gossiping about some prince."

The girl got a shocked look in return, which was saying something since Mal rarely appeared shocked, having a tight control over her emotions. Preferring monsters and magic to princesses and princes? The girl clearly belonged on the Isle, not at Auradon Prep. She also seemed to think that magic was still being taught at the school. Where exactly was she from?

"What's your name?" asked Mal bluntly, although the girl didn't seem to mind.

The girl brought out a name tag from her pocket that she must have ripped off earlier. "It's Lilo Pelekai. What's yours?"

"It's Mal," she replied, preferring to omit her connection to her mother. For some reason, the girl would probably be impressed by that fact rather than scared which should have been a normal reaction. But the girl, Lilo, was coming across as anything but normal.

"Cool name," responded the girl, confirming Mal's suspicions about how normal Lilo was. A rustling noise came from the branches above Mal, causing her to look up. Crawling around on the branches was what appeared to be a blue, furry dog?

"That's Stitch," explained Lilo. "He's an alien. Come on down Stitch and meet Mal."

Alien? Yeah, this girl was as far from being normal as her mother was to being a fairy godmother. The blue creature, Stitch, obeyed Lilo, crawling down the trunk of the tree as if he was walking down a street until he reached a spot above Mal's head and jumped to the ground.

He then stuck out a hand, or claw, or whatever the correct terminology for an alien was, in Mal's face and spoke. "Hi."

Mal stuck out a hand as well and shook Stitch's appendage. "Hi," she replied. She had seen and experienced some strange stuff before in life back on the Isle, but shaking hands with an actual alien topped them all. "So, you're an alien." She was usually smoother than this, but there was just something about the situation throwing her off. She blamed Ben for throwing off her evil and sarcastic groove.

"Ih," replied Stitch, though Mal had no idea what 'Ih' meant.

"Stitch was originally created by Jumba as an evil experiment designed to destroy the world. He was supposed to be drawn to large cities where'd he back up sewers, reverse street signs and steal everybody's left shoe. Then he met me, and I helped him become good, and now he's my best friend."

"Ih," said Stitch. "Ohana."

"Ohana," agreed Lilo. "Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

Wait? What? The girl, who could be a future Auradon Prep student, admitted out loud, that her best friend in the world was an alien creature who was designed to destroy the world?

"Does the fairy godmother know about your friend?" asked Mal, who was still having a hard time believing that the whole situation wasn't some elaborate hoax or prank set up by Audrey. Then again, the girl probably didn't have enough brains to pull something as elaborate as this off.

"Yeah, that's why she invited me to attend school here, because Stitch and I are apparently heroes. It's not like what we did was a big deal, we just turned Stitch's cousins to good and helped them find the one place where they belonged."

"No biggie," added Stitch, who sat down next to Lilo who was in the middle of the trio.

Things were starting to make a bit more sense in Mal's head. These two were heroes, albeit the strangest heroes Mal had ever heard of. And as heroes they had been invited to attend Auradon Prep. "So is Jumba your villain then?"

Mal hadn't heard of any Jumba on the Isle, but she may have left before he was banished there if the girl was a new hero.

"Villain?" asked Lilo, confused by the term.

"Villain," clarified Mal, "you know, the big bad guy you fought against and won in order to become a hero?"

"Well," began Lilo, and tilted her head to the side, "originally Jumba was an evil genius who was sent to capture Stitch and destroyed my house, but now he's part of my ohana. I guess Gantu could count, but he's rejoined the Galactic Armada."

"Ika potootie," muttered Stitch under his breath. Mal really didn't need a translation to understand what that phrase meant. She tried to memorize, and save it as an insult to use later.

"I suppose there's Dr. Hamsterviel, but he's locked up in Galactic Prison, though he could always escape again. I hope he doesn't, he probably wouldn't last for long if they ended up sending him to the Isle."

Growing up on the Isle Mal learned the basics about life. There were heroes, and there were villains. Heroes were nothing but goody two-shoes princes and princesses who stopped the villains' nefarious plots. Villains were evil beings who came up with grand schemes and were banished to the Isle. That was it. You either fit into one category or another, and if you were born good, like Ben, you were good, if you were born bad, like her, you stayed bad. When a person was born, they were born to one side or the other, and that was it, there was no such thing as switching sides. Villains didn't go good unless they were pretending to fool the heroes, and heroes didn't go bad unless they were bad all along.

It was simple. But then Ben had come along challenging her ideals and insisting that the four of them could be good if they chose to be, causing her to doubt herself. And now here was Lilo and Stitch who were acting as if switching sides was an everyday occurrence for them. So bad and good really wasn't as simple and clear cut as Mal had first thought.

"What about you?" It took a second for Mal to realize that Lilo had just asked her a question.

What about her? It was such an open-ended question really. If it had been anybody else, Mal would have probably smirked and made some sarcastic remark. Lilo wasn't anybody else though. "My mom's Maleficent," she admitted. She didn't know what else to say, but was also rather curious to see how Lilo and Stitch would take the news.

"Your mom is the crazy scary dragon lady? That's so cool!" exclaimed Lilo, and amusing Mal. She had experienced many reactions to who her mother was over the years—mostly fear, a little jealousy, and here the occasional pity, but Lilo was the first who seemed genuinely excited.

"Ih," said Stitch, which Mal was starting to think meant 'yes' in whatever alien language he was speaking.

"Not really. When you're the daughter of one of the most evil villains that has ever lived, everybody expects you to follow in her footsteps—including her." A frown crossed Mal's face without realizing it. Before, she would have said such a thing with pride. Now she spoke it with an air of weariness, as if it was more of a burden than a blessing.

Lilo must have noticed Mal's unhappiness because her face softened, and she spoke in a hushed voice. "But you don't want to."

So far, Mal had avoided actually saying such a thing out loud—the Isle had taught her that you never knew who could be listening in one some precious conversation only to use it against later. Here, there was less of a chance, but admitting it aloud what she was really thinking would be so final, and make it so real. She had spent her entire life trying to live up to her mother and being evil enough to make her proud, but now she was doubts and was starting to think she never really wanted that life style, but was just going along with what her mom wanted.

"I thought I did, once," she said slowly at first. "But now… I don't want to. There, I said it. I don't want to be my mom and I don't want to be evil. But all I've ever known is being evil, and everybody expects me to be evil, so how can I ever be anything but evil? How can I ever be good?" The last part came out fast and jumbled. Mal hadn't even thought about what she was saying, just rambling on as the thoughts entered her brain, and now that it was over, Mal felt like a weight was lifted from her. For the first time in a long time she was honest with herself.

Stitch was the first to speak after Mal's confession. "Ohana," he said.

Mal rolled her eyes, remembering what ohana meant. "Weren't you listening? Ohana means family, and my family is my mother who's the source of all my problems!"

"No, Stitch is right," said Lilo and started to rummage around in her backpack. Eventually she found what she was looking for and pulled it out. Mal wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but a photo album wasn't it. Lilo flipped open to the first page, and showed Mal a picture that had been torn off, and even potentially singed at some point. In it was what appeared to be Lilo, along with several adults who looked to be related to her. In one corner there was a picture of Stitch, which was added in such a way that looked as if it was trying to be part of the original torn picture.

"Sometimes ohana is the family you're born into." Then, Lilo flipped towards the back of the album and opened it revealing a wide group shot. Mal could make out Lilo and Stitch in the middle of it, along with an adult from the other picture, but they surrounded by a bunch of weirdly colored and shaped creatures that Mal could only assume that they were aliens like Stitch. "And sometimes ohana is the family you create. There was a time before when my ohana was small and broken. But thanks to Stitch, it's large now. I now have Stitch, Jumba, Pleakley, David, Cobra Bubbles, the Grand Council Woman, all of Stitch's cousins, and I guess even Gantu now that he's been reinstated to the Galactic Armada."

Stitch made a face at Gantu's name, but didn't say anything.

"That's nice, but I don't have anybody else to create an ohana with," said Mal dismissively. As a villain she had been taught to be independent and not to trust anybody else—well besides her mom, who had also taught her the lesson. But she didn't really have anybody else she could call ohana.

"Really?" asked Lilo, and shot Mal a doubting look. "You don't have any friends you're close to, who encourage you, or are willing to come to your aid when you've crash landed a spaceship in the middle of the ocean and need a ride back to land?"

Mal was about to respond at the ridiculousness of the question, especially the last part, when three faces popped into her head. Carlos, Evie, and Jay. None of them had seemed that thrilled with stealing the fairy godmother's wand, but were willing to go along with it, not because of their parents—who were trapped on the Isle and technically couldn't do anything—but because Mal had asked them too. Even with Jay doing good at Tourney, Evie proving that she was more than a pretty face in her classes, and Carlos discovering how much he loved Dude. While they may have been hurt after what happened the other day, Mal was pretty sure that they would prefer to stay at Auardon Prep than going through with the plan. They were giving up their happiness in order to make her happy, which was most definitely not a villain thing to do.

Another face popped into her head, Ben. She hadn't known him for as long as she had known the others, but there was something so genuine and fresh about him. He saw good in her when she couldn't even see it herself. He was a fool for doing so—everybody in the school said so behind his back—but she had never had somebody believe that she could be good, let alone somebody she wanted to be good for. She had made the anti-love potion for him, which was something a true villain would never do.

"Ohana," said Stitch encouragingly after see her expression as the four images popped into her head.

"But what if they don't support my decision?" Ben most certainly would, but what about the other three? Would Evie, Jay, and Carlos stand by her side if she decided to not go through with the plan?

"Then they're not your ohana," replied Lilo matter-of-factly. "True ohana will support you no matter what decisions you make, even if they disagree with them and tell you that they're dangerous and will most likely get you killed and do everything in their power to get you not to go through with them, but they'll still be there for you at the end."

Mal had a rather strong feeling that Lilo was speaking from experience, and while Lilo's advice had helped some, there was still one rather large question nagging at the back of her head. "But how do I know I can even be good? What if I fail and go back to being evil?"

Lilo looked at Stitch, who nodded at her and spoke. "Is hard," he said speaking slowly, trying to find the right words in English to get his point across. "Stitch made to be bad, to destroy. Sometimes Stitch still want to destroy or does bad. But Stitch wants ohana more, and ohana keeps Stitch trying to be good."

It was the most Mal had ever heard Stitch say, leaving most of the talking to Lilo. It wasn't in perfect English, but Mal managed to get the gist of it. Being good wouldn't be easy, and sometimes she would be tempted and might lapse into her old ways. But as long as she tried to be good with the help of her ohana, then she would be good.

Stitch's head perked up, and his ears started to move around, sensing something. "Lilo!" A voice, somewhat far away was yelling the girl's name. Mal found herself wondering exactly how good his hearing was.

Lilo didn't seem surprised at her name being called, but more annoyed. "Drat. I thought I bought more time introducing Nani to Lonnie—my sister Nani is a huge fan of Mulan, she has a picture of her on her bedroom wall and everything. We have to get going, but first…" After putting the album back into her backpack, Lilo rummaged around once more and pulled out a small white envelope with a CD inside. "The real reason why Stitch and I agreed to come on the tour was to introduce more people to the King. You people have the worst taste in music around here, though you do look like an Elvis fan. I know, I can tell."

Mal took the envelope and quirked an eyebrow. "The King?" She had never heard of a King doing music, well at least enough to make a CD out of it.

"The King," nodded Lilo with a serious look on her face.

Stitch started to move his right arm around in a circle and struck a pose. "Rock n' roll!"

"Lilo!" yelled Nani, who was closer than she was the first time. "Lilo where are you?"

"Coming!" yelled Lilo back, and stood up with Stitch who gathered her backpack in his arms. Mal stood to her feet as well, feeling awkward being the only one still sitting. Lilo then spoke. "It was nice to meet you, and if you want, you could be part of our ohana."

"I'd like that," admitted Mal, and surprised herself by how true the words were. Who knew she was a big softy deep down? Ben probably, he had known all along. "Hey Lilo, before you go, how would you like me to do your hair?"

After Lilo had left, Mal had remained at the tree in order to think things over. Being where she was though, she still heard Nani's shriek of surprise at seeing Lilo's purple hair. Before Lilo had left, Mal had assured her the spell wasn't permanent and would fade over time. Something she should probably mention to the rest of the girls whose hair she had done. She could do that later though, along with telling her new ohana about the change in the plan. Hopefully they'd be willing to support her decision. For now though she had a music player to track down so she could listen to this King Elvis guy. Mal already liked one king—well soon to be king—who said she couldn't like another?

**Author's Note:**

> Lilo and Stitch is hands down my favorite Disney animated movie just because of how different Lilo is compared to the rest of Disney's heroines. Not long into the movie we see her making voodoo dolls of her friends, something you would usually see a Disney villain do, not a hero. That's what inspired this fic, along with the idea that Mal could use somebody to talk with experience from turning good who was designed for, or in Mal's case, born to be evil and do nothing but destroy. Who'd better than to give that advice than Stitch? As for why Mal waited until the coronation itself before letting the others in on her decision to change, she was still nervous about whether or not they'd support her. But then Jane stole the wand, her mother showed, and suddenly she found herself having to act on her choice, and found that the others did support her after all, and were truly her ohana.
> 
> Headcanon dictates that if the fairy tale Disney movies happened twenty years, the more recent movies set in modern times with current technology and trends happened more recently, this making Lilo part of Mal's generation rather than King Adam's and Queen Belle's. Headcanon also dictates that Lilo and Mal would probably be friends, and Lilo and Stitch would go on a quest to convert all of Auradon to Elvis lovers.
> 
> It is canon that Nani is a fan of Mulan's. There's a scene in the movie of her bedroom, and you can clearly see a Mulan poster hanging on her bedroom wall. There's even a restaurant in one of the scene's called 'Mulan Wok', mainly as a shout-out because it was produced by Chris Sanders who directed and wrote Lilo and Stitch. Tantalog is the language Stitch speaks, and according the Disney wiki 'Ih' translates to 'Yes' and 'Ika patootie' translates to 'Stupid-head', which is what Stitch calls Gantu.
> 
> This was originally posted on Fanfiction.net.


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